Animation Nodes move certain mesh vertices
the "Object Mesh Data" Node has a hidden input called "Vertex Normals". Press n to open the properties panel in the node editor and activate the output by clicking on the little eye icon.



you can then use a vector math node to scale the vertices along their normals. shuffle the vertex list and remove all but the first vertices.

That's it. 



Parameters to control the output:


Scaling factor of the first vector math node: there you can control how far away each point is from the base mesh
Node Seed of the shuffle list node: shuffles the list in another order, other vertices get deleted from the end of the vertex list
end of the slice list node: controls the amount of vertices that don't get deleted


Bonus
node setup with splines (like in your reference image):



Let me know if you need anything else or a deeper explanation